Color street photography

Not sure about letting the eye “explore.” You need something to draw you in, tonality-wise as well, then the eye follows a path. It’s fairly predictable. Too many white corners take you right out of the frame. It’s like what’s the first thing you see, then what’s next, and next…

By making it a comfortable place to explore I mean that, while the eye does have a gestalt view of the whole photo, at the ground level it likes to be presented with easily followable paths (no confusion, no dead ends) to explore whatever it finds interesting.

unclejohn wrote in post #19409977
By making it a comfortable place to explore I mean that, while the eye does have a gestalt view of the whole photo, at the ground level it likes to be presented with easily followable paths (no confusion, no dead ends) to explore whatever it finds interesting.

Exactly my point.
I taught photo and the crit discussions were exactly that; what do you see first, then where are you drawn next, and next. It’s a story that can be directed as to its unfolding.

As long as I give my eye good paths to follow and something interesting to look at, it is happy no matter how crazy the composition. Like in this one (sorry, not a street scene) it knows that there's nothing worth looking at in the big blank area, so it just happily jumps over it from face to face if it doesn't feel like going around.

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …%20roast-1-S.jpg&lb=1&s=A

unclejohn wrote in post #19410227
As long as I give my eye good paths to follow and something interesting to look at, it is happy no matter how crazy the composition. Like in this one (sorry, not a street scene) it knows that there's nothing worth looking at in the big blank area, so it just happily jumps over it from face to face if it doesn't feel like going around.

IMAGE LINK: https://photos.smugmug​.com …%20roast-1-S.jpg&lb=1&s=A on Smugmug

I strongly disagree

Good. I was hoping to get people to think about these things and express their opinions.

Tate Modern

unclejohn wrote in post #19410537
Good. I was hoping to get people to think about these things and express their opinions.

Cool. I was afraid to post.
Opinion:
I really don’t think it works. The void doesn’t add anything for me. The crop on the seated woman is odd. I have no idea what’s going on, or why I should be interested. Any almost interesting parts are almost at the edge of the image. Is the subject a woman or the cash (but the cash is soft)?
I would have stepped to either side and shot more over a shoulder, but that’s me. It would fill the frame better, and get the viewer more involved in the transaction rather than as a voyeur.

This was a catch-as-catch-can shot. I had no freedom on the point of view, I was sitting on the other side of the table. And there was almost no cropping, I just straightened the frame and took a bit off on the left to reduce the black shadow behind the woman's head. To me the point of this picture is the expressions on the two women's faces. The big blank area doesn't bother me because it is so obviously blank and there is nothing to draw the eye to it. And jumping across it is just another path. I think it is a cute picture, if others think it is poop that's fair.

If I was displaying this picture, I would give it the (fictitious) title "Isn't that enough?"

mcluckie wrote in post #19410560
Opinion:
I really don’t think it works. The void doesn’t add anything for me. . . . Is the subject a woman or the cash (but the cash is soft)?

My eye/brain uses the void as a compositional element. It draws attention because it's unusually large. "The subject"––maybe it's the interaction between the figures, what they're doing, rather than a single visual object.